For his first solo exhibition in Argentina in eleven years, Nicolás Sarmiento presents at Piedras the trajectories of his practice following his move to Basel, Switzerland. Temperatura ambiente brings together drawings, video, and sculptures that sit between industrial design, architecture, and exhibition devices, proposing a shift—or a short circuit— in relation to their promised functionality.

Between here and there, the exhibition proposes a moment of equilibrium in which space ceases to be a static container and becomes the element that shapes the relationships between bodies, objects, and memory.

Nicolás Sarmiento (Necochea, 1986) is an Argentine artist who lives and works between Basel and Buenos Aires. Much of his life has been shaped by travel on public transportation, as well as economic and linguistic fluctuations, understood as processes for rethinking configurations of reality through precarious or simple elements rooted in working-class ethics, as well as through the potential of energies stalled in distant places. He seeks a demystifying transparency in his role as an artist, oscillating between the monumental scale of large- scale works and the diminutive scale of a shoe. He is interested not only in the aesthetic and formal aspects of sculpture, video, and drawing, but also in their social dimensions and how they determine the position of the work within the public sphere and private interpersonal relationships. His practice, grounded in research into matter, language, medium, and form across different environments, reflects on the human condition and its complex relationships with industrial post- capitalism, absurdity, and nature.

Sarmiento studied at the Instituto Nacional del Arte in Buenos Aires. In 2010, he participated in the artist program at Universidad Torcuato Di Tella, and in 2020 he completed a Master’s degree in Visual Arts at Institut Kunst, FHNW HGK, Basel. In 2022, he received the Swiss Art Awards, and in 2023 he was awarded the Werkbeitrag by Kunstkredit Basel-Stadt.

His work has been presented in solo exhibitions in Buenos Aires, including Saga Candado (Móvil, 2015) and Alexis Brisa (Peña Galería, 2012), as well as internationally in Shells of Visibility (Atelier Bella, Zurich, 2023), Public Possession (Amore, Basel, 2022), and Non Chemical Outpost (Faltpavillion, Bettingen, 2021). Recent group exhibitions include Come As You Are (Kunsthalle Basel, 2024), Please Hold (Ausstellungsraum Klingental), and Homes. Die Mehrzahl von Zuhause (Kunsthaus Baselland, 2022), as well as the Swiss Art Awards.